t 13 years old, the boy got his first guitar. After only about 3 years, he began to get recognized. He would begin playing all around his hometown in Surry, England, still developing his style. The young adult quickly found his mojo when he began playing with the Yardbirds. When he found the band falling into a world of Pop music, he moved on to develop a band named Cream. One that would leave a fork in the road for a whole new wave of music. The man that played guitar behind the music of both The Yardbirds and Cream wasn’t just another normal guitarist, his name was Eric Clapton.
Eric Clapton had an unbelievable influence in Blues Rock, and is considered one of the founders. From the beginning, he had a natural love for blues. Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Robert Johnson, and Jimi Hendrix was the type of music he had a passion for both listening to and learning. His Grandparents both took care of young Eric Clapton and started him on a musical pathway, as he barely even knew his parents.
Once Eric Clapton finally gets recognized by his friends and associates, he finds himself playing for a band called the Yardbirds. The Yardbirds were more of a rock band; and with Clapton’s influence of Blues, he began developing his blues rock style that would change the game. He began to get bored of the more mainstream music that the Yardbirds began to start playing, and Clapton left in 1965 to try to find his place in a few other groups.
After some time, Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce found Clapton and they made Cream. They were best known for “Sunshine of Your Love”. The Album Wheels of Fire is also one of the most renowned blues rock Album.
As Eric began to get more and more involved with drugs and alcohol, tensions between their band grew. Eventually Cream broke up, leaving Eric to hop around a few different bands to soon find himself starting his solo career. At this point, Eric Clapton and George Harrison of the Beatles were good friends. George Harrisons wife, Pattie Boyd gained quick attention from Eric. Where did musical masterpieces such as “Layla” originate from? A man deeply in love with his best friends’ wife who will reject the advance. Clapton ended up falling into a long, depressive state involving heroin.
It turns out that after a while, Harrison and Pattie didn’t end up working out. At the same time, Eric Clapton was making his way out of his heroin-induced days. They ended up marrying 5 years later.
As the eighties began to roll by, Eric began to ease away from the traditional Clapton people knew him for. He evolved from shredding solos to trying to perfect the rhythmic aspect of his music. I personally want to use the song “Before you Accuse Me” as my model example, because it’s filled with perfect examples of his strong guitar playing skills. His music changed from long solos to perfect licks that complement the songs he’s created in the best way possible.
After 6 albums in 1980, filled with less popular but just as legendary songs, such as “Same old Blues” in the 1985 Album “Behind The Sun”.
1990 ended up showing some redemption for Eric Clapton. The Album, “Unplugged” ended up becoming his most popular album ever. This involved acoustics only, and ended up being the most blues-driven album he had created since before the 1980’s. This also included the song “Tears in Heaven” which Eric Clapton wrote for his son when he fell out of his mothers’ 53rd floor apartment window at only 4 years old. It ended up becoming a top 40 hit.
There are many reasons why Eric Clapton’s musical history is involved with his personal history, which ultimately relates to the evolution of music as a whole and how new sound is developed. Eric Clapton has had a lot of problems throughout his life from the beginning. He did not even know his parents, he has gone through alcohol and drug addiction issues, while redeeming himself by marrying his best friends’ ex-wife. He’s had two wives and five children; one of the children being lost in an extremely uncalled for circumstance. But what can we see from this?
By looking at Eric Clapton’s history, I find that the most major changes in his music development had occurred during many of his major life changes.